Could there be morning gal hiding inside crazy night owl?
Sadly this was my last weekend at Bear Lake... We helped Clare close down her cabin for winter this weekend. I feel pretty blessed to have been able to spend so much time there this summer. Morning gal? Night Owl? Maybe just Lucky Gal!
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Solitary thoughts Shall I keep hanging around? Or let go and fall? |
Three things you may or may not know about me...
I am NOT a morning person.
I am a nature lover.
I love to take pictures
This of course means that I love to take pictures of nature. Problem being, one of the best times for viewing wildlife, as well capturing nature in glorious light, is very early in the morning, not exactly my favorite time of day. Luckily for me I have early birds in my life who will roust me out bed for an adventure now and then. As much as my natural night owl hates to admit it, after a wee bit of coffee clears cobwebs from my head, I end up enjoying the early morning hours, as that time of day often offers up amazing experiences.
A week ago for instance, we decided to return from Bear Lake in the morning before work, which being about a 2.5 hour drive meant leaving at the crack of dawn. We left Clare's cabin just as the suns rays began to paint the wildfire smoke filled skies in shades of pink. A good sized animal scurried across the dirt road before us. It dropped over the road edge out of site as we discussed what it might be. A racoon? A large marmot? Neither seemed right, but as though he wanted to answer our question his(her's?) head popped back over the road into the spotlight of our headlights. He took a step, then stood up and looked at us as though he was just as curious about us as we were about him. We had a staring contest for a minute then he turned tail and ambled back down the hill. A badger!!! I've always wanted to see one, and he was my first. Squeeee! If only my camera was not in the back of the car. *sigh*, it was probably too dark anyway. As we pulled away, in the shadows some deer moved alongside the road, and we headed off along the pink framed lake then up out of the valley and onto the open range where we were greeted by a beautiful Wyoming sunrise, and along the way saw some Sandhill Cranes, more deer, and even a few antelope in the distance.
Maybe this early morning thing is not so bad....
Spending time at Bear Lake puts us in shooting distance of another favorite hot spring... Maple Grove, a lovely little spring situated adjacent to the Bear River in Southern Idaho. It's little over an hour from my friends cabin, but a beautiful drive alongside Bear Lake, through Idaho farmland then up through the mountains over Strawberry Pass. Then a windy dirt road to a sweet spot on the Oneida Narrows. The resort is off grid and casual, a small bathhouse, campsites and some yurts to rent, there is a good size, perfect temperature, shaded soaking pool, as well as several smaller round pools of varying temperatures in the sunshine along the river. The setting can't be beat, and since we were there on Monday we pretty much had the place to ourselves.
It was delightfully peaceful and relaxing! The charmed life for sure!
Yes, beach. In Utah. An actual natural lake, with sandy beach and water as amazingly beautiful blue as the Caribbean. After a day of swimming, some stand up paddle boarding, sand sculpting, and then the nice hot springs soak, I really regretted that I didn't discover Bear Lake until after my kids left the nest. What a great place for summer weekend away!
My Etsy goals are hardly lofty, I'd just like to start earning enough money with my hobbies to start paying for my hobbies. It would be nice to self fund my supply closet, pay for studios fees and maybe even the occasional class of workshop....and maybe the travel to workshops, like the one I just took in Japan, but that would be more of dream than a goal..LOL Etsy is easy. Take few pictures, write a few descriptions push a few buttons and voile' you are an Etsy seller. Or should I say, an Etsy lister. Listing on Etsy IS easy, getting views and sales not so much.
To get started again I decided to to do some price checking to get an idea what to list pottery bowls for on Etsy. As I'm scrolling down the listings I spy a a bowl... I know that bowl, it's my bowl. Well, not a bowl I made, but one just like my everyday kitchen ware, but in shades of brown, rather than green like mine. This bowl however, was broken and repaired with gold in kintsugi style.
Kintsugi is an traditional Japanese repair method where broken pottery is repaired with with lacquer and gold. While the practice likely has roots in practicality, it also is well known for it's message, that things can be even more broken for having being broken. When I was at John Dix's studio in Japan he had a quite beautiful example of kintsugi on his shelf of sake cups as pictured below.
But this etsy seller? After looking at his page I would say it appeared that he bought lots of thrift store pottery, broke it and repaired it kintsugi style. Not even really good kintsuge; kind of rough seams, and I'm guessing epoxy and gold paint, not lacquer and powdered gold. He had quite the business going, thousands and thousands of sales. Repaired broken junk dishes at $35+ a piece. Sigh. My vision of kintsugi would be that it is a repair one might do to a precious object, say, Grandmas favorite teacup, or a favorite one of a kind pottery bowl. Not something you would do to some cheap broken dishes.... and by cheap, I know, because my green bowl, a different colored twin to this kintsugi piece, is from a set I bought on sale at Shopko for $20 for service for four. Truly nothing special. Hhhmmf... but he's built a very successful business, lots of sales, and judging from the comments lots of satisfied customers who were quite happy to buy into the Zen of things being more beautiful for having being broken. While I have to commend his success, it leaves me wondering about the sales success of my fellow potters, who often have a hard time selling a beautiful handcrafted bowl for $35. I guess there is something to be said for marketing... and the fact that we artists must need to do it a little better...
Ebau Kintsugi
Dish from my cupboard
Kintsugi sake cup fromm John's collection
A fun northern Utah adventure... a trip to the Spiral Jetty, a rather famous 1970's land art installation. I'd been there a few years ago, back when the Great Salt Lake was much higher and the Jetty nearly under water, but now after years of drought the entire jetty is exposed, making it totally different experience.
We found lots of baby jettys on the shore.
While we were there we hiked the hill for the aerial view... and while we were there did a cheeseburger summit!
Having taken this adventure with my nerdy birdy friend April, we had to enjoy all the bird sitings along the way. I wish I had gotten a good shot of all the Long Billed Curlew we saw, but birds are so hard photograph with my meager 200mm lens. I was however pretty happy with shot of this great clutch of burrowing owls! Pretty cool eh?
After a hot springs soak we decide to a sunset spin through the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge would be fun. It was getting a little dark for bird pictures, but sunset is always spectacular there.
My photo question of the day... Which of these do you like better? I sure can't decide!
So I have a favorite music artist. Kind of an unusual choice for an old gal, as he's a hiphop/rap type artist, and I find that a lot of people my age (54!!) don't embrace the 'new' music. But I am a gal with quite eclectic musical tastes, and love discovering new and interesting artists. Grieves came to me through my daughter, who discovered him when he opened up for Atmosphere, way back when she was about 15. We have a funny bit of history together about Grieves, which I have written about in the past here and here. I really, really love his music, have all his albums and joke that I am his "oldest fan". It really surprises teh 20 somethings at work when I start playing his music in the lab. What? An old woman likes hip hop? Say it isn't so.
Imagine my surprise last week when driving home from work, listening to my totally un-cool and un-hip, 'All Things Considered' on NPR and I hear Grieves "Bloody Poetry" playing! So what does this mean? Is NPR cool now? Or maybe it's always been cool, despite that my listening to it made my kids nuts back when they were in school. Sarah always complained that everyone on public radio talked in a mono-tone! Or maybe I'm cool now? Eh, probably not...LOL Is Grieves now a mainstream artist? I've always thought of him as 'alternative', I don't think anyone I've ever told about him, old or young, had ever heard of him. I hope getting played on NPR is a sign that he has "arrived" as his music is great! Give him a listen!
We have no tiara stores in Salt Lake, but it seems we are not lacking bling, sometimes found in surprising places. On Saturday while running errands I stopped at the IFA (Intermountain Farmers Association) store, and there I found more bling than I've seen in forever.... sparkly western belts, rhinestone necklaces, and if you were kid, or a gal with very small feet, glitter toed cowboy boots in pink and blue and silver! I guess country gals like to be blingy princesses too!
Oh, and while you are at it, you can buy some baby chickens, or maybe a rubber pirate chicken.
A late Friday afternoon/evening trip with my nerdy birdy friend April to visit a few of my happy places, Crystal Hot Springs and the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.
It was a rainy day. Rain is quite welcome here in the drought worn west, I know that in the past this dry section of the refuge pictured below has actually been a wet land. The good news is the birds are back. We stopped an watched a flock of ibis in a alfalfa field on the road to the refuge. I couldn't get a good picture, as the birds are so flighty, but it was so fun to watch the dark heads bobbing up and down all over the field.
White Faced Ibis - I wish I could have gotten a better picture of all activity in this field!!!
American Avocets - I never tire of these! and thy were noisy
And we are always thrilled to death to see a Sandhill Crane!
My goodness.... it has been forever since I posted anything... and not for good reason, I actually have a full list of things I've meant to post.. cool pictures from another trip to Eureka, adventures on a trip to in Zion, Brighton snow sculptures, Northern Utah Adventures, amusing things I have found here and there... It seems like after a few days have past it is 'too late' to blog the things that capture my interest... hmm perhaps I should backward blog them all.
But here, before it is 'too late' I want to blog a fun thing from last week... Not my life really, but my son's, but it made me smile!
This is my son's adolescent fantasy come true. He spent every warm weather moment of his childhood on his skateboard (How many times did I hear "Watch me ollie Mom!"?), or watching skate videos when the weather was bad, and he and his friends were constantly filming their tricks and making their own videos.
Now, finally, at age 25 he debuted in his first 'pro' skateboard video last week. He's at minute 8:01, just one quick trick (nothing fancy he told me), but his name is in the video. He said he didn't even realize he got filmed that day.
http://snowboarding.transworld.net/videos/fakie-bigspin-the-movie-3/#zKGMi0FBks4XDHsa.01
Fall has come to a favorite spot of mine, Willow Lake. Since discovering this little gem of a hike a few years ago, I have been determined to make it up here with my camera when the leaves were changing, but have been sidelined by a bad knee or unlucky enough to miss-timed when to expect the colors. I had reason to believe this was 'the week', but I had spent the week recovering from surgery and by the weekend, as I began to feel better, instead of hiking weather we had a dreary weekend of rain predicted, making me afraid I might once again miss my opportunity. But when a window of blue sky opened up Sunday on this otherwise very rainy weekend I suggested to my friend, "Let's go!", and he resoundingly said "Yes!" and off we went. Apparently this was my lucky year!
As frequently happens I've had a hard time deciding which pictures to post, so here is my indecisive collection of similar, yet different shots.
I wrote a little haiku to go along some of these pictures...
Autumn reflections
Leaves of green fade to yellow
Summer slips away
